The thesis deals with the issue of stress in teachers. The concepts of teacher, stressor, stress and burn out syndrome are explained, as well as the connection between them. The theoretical part is focused on the stress prevention and the defense against stress. The aim of the practical part is to detect the main stressors in teachers, as well as the frequency and the intensity of their stress and negative emotions experience with regard to their professional age, sex and specialization. Further, teachers' knowledge about stress and their effort to prevent themselves from experiencing it are investigated.

This dissertation identifies factors causing the burnout syndrome, which occur especially in the area of work career. It discusses risks that cause the burnout syndrome and the possibilities of its prevention. The theoretical part analyses particular aspects of burnout and describes career as a significant part of human life. The second part of the dissertation evaluates research that was conducted in a chosen organisation. Findings regarding a stress prevention programme are discussed in the second part, as well as the topic of how ready participants are to use the gained knowledge in real life. The paper also assesses how employees and their supervisors evaluate the stress prevention programme. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse the effectiveness of the stress prevention programme and its impacts. Some suggestions of possible improvements within the programme are also mentioned.

Teaching is a stressful, uncertain, and emotionally laden profession (Chaplain, 2008; Farber, 1999; Johnson et al., 2005). One approach to reduce psychological distress and improve well-being in teachers is through the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs. While MBSR programs have been shown in several studies to be effective with regard to improving well-being in teachers, little research has been done to date examining the relationship between program dose and outcomes. This study examines the relationship between both generic and program-specific dose and outcomes of stress and burnout. Results showed some evidence that generic yoga frequency is related to outcomes. No significant relationships between program-specific dose and outcomes were found. Directions for future research are discussed.

I have been interested in the topic I chose for my diploma thesis since I was deciding on my future profession. When it comes to the teaching profession, usually the idea of summer holidays attracts everyone. However, the stress that teachers face in performing this profession is not so much talked about. Therefore, I decided to learn more about this issue. This thesis deals specifically with stress in primary school teachers, to which teachers are increasingly exposed, and the word stress is very often associated with this profession. For several years I personally worked as a teaching assistant in a special school and now I teach Czech to foreigners at a primary school in Pilsen. Also for this reason, I decided to map the stress of primary school teachers. I would like to continue working in this profession, as well as working on my personal growth and finding a way to effectively prevent stress. The thesis is divided into two parts. In the theoretical part, I define the terms load and stress first and cite some well-known authors dealing with this issue. I also describe the symptoms of stress of various kinds and its consequences for our health. In the following chapter I describe individual stressors, which have a significant effect on the teacher's work performance. The chapter describing...

Increasingly, evidence indicates that workplace interpersonal conflicts (WIC) are the most upsetting/troublesome daily work stressors (Sulsky & Smith, 2007), and within the context of nursing, WIC is a problem of high prevalence and intensity (Baltimore, 2006; Farrell, 1999). In relation to coping with stressors such as WIC, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) established the transactional model of stress and coping, where cognitive appraisals of the stressor (e.g., perceived control) are central to coping and classified all coping behaviors as either problem-focused or emotion-focused. They also proposed the "goodness of fit hypothesis", which predicts that problem-focused coping efforts used to cope with stressors of high appraised control and emotion-focused coping paired with stressors of low appraised control will produce the most effective outcomes. Contrary to these predictions, the general literature has produced inconsistent results, suggesting that context, research method, and individual difference variables (i.e., occupational tenure) should be considered when testing this hypothesis, particularly in novel contexts such as the nursing workplace. This research was part of a larger study to identify key factors in the retention of nurses in the workforce, including a weekly survey spanning 12 weeks. Across the 12 week study period, 148 nurse participants completed an online survey, which included questions regarding the most negative interpersonal conflict at work for that week, the appraised controllability of the event, how the participant coped across 8 coping strategies, and how effective the coping efforts were. I used hierarchical linear modeling to test the goodness of fit hypothesis with these data, where the interaction terms between coping frequency and control represented the key predictions of goodness of fit. Results revealed no support for the goodness of fit hypothesis, as the interactions were not significant. Consistent with goodness of fit, however, perceived control positively predicted problem-focused coping and negatively predicted emotion-focused coping for some nurses. This suggests that despite no improvement in coping outcomes, the underlying mechanisms for goodness of fit (i.e., matching perceived control with coping type) were in operation. Results also demonstrated no support of occupational tenure as a variable influential on the coping process. However, supplemental analyses revealed that as organizational tenure increased, nurses varied their coping strategies more, which then, in turn, produced more effective coping outcomes. As the first effort to examine goodness of fit within the workplace to the best of my knowledge, these results suggest that the goodness of fit hypothesis may only have limited applicability to nursing, but should be examined in other nursing contexts and workplace conditions. Moreover, the length of time a nurse spends with an organization seems to influence one's coping style and the ability to match coping efforts with situational characteristics, producing more effective coping with interpersonal conflicts at work. These findings also imply that providing nurses with training about organization-specifics may improve efforts to cope with interpersonal conflicts that arise in the workplace.

Oxidative stress is the major driving force behind the aging process and many age-related diseases. However, direct experimental evidence of whether antioxidants, such as ascorbate (AA) and lipoic acid (LA) can slow the progression of aging process and/or reduce risks of developing degenerative disease is largely absent. This suggests a better understanding of the precise mechanism of how dietary micronutrient affect parameters of involved in cellular redox balance and aging are warranted. In this dissertation, young and old rats were used as our model to understand potential pro-oxidant events that contribute to increases in oxidative stress in various tissues and how antioxidants such as ascorbate and lipoic acid influence these events. Our major findings are that the age-related impairment of mitochondria and increased deposition of iron contribute significantly to heighten levels of oxidative stress, as evidenced by the resultant increases in the rates of oxidant appearance and in the levels of oxidative damage to DNA, lipids and proteins. We find that AA and LA strongly protected against transition metal-ion dependent increases in oxidative stress. AA effectively inhibited transition metal-mediated lipide peroxidation in human plasma. LA in its reduced form effectively binds iron and copper in a redox inactive manner and reversed chronically elevated levels of iron in the brain without removing enzyme bound transition metal ions. LA also significantly attenuated the age-related increase in oxidative stress associated with mitochondrial decay in the heart, as evidenced by the improvements in AA levels and glutathione redox status. The declines in tissue GSH levels in aged rats were strongly associated with the diminished γ-GCL activity (in parallel with decreased expression of the catalytic and modulatory subunits), and lowered Nrf2 expression and binding to ARE sequence in rat liver. Remarkably, all these events were effectively reversed by the administration of LA, modulating the parameters to return to the observed in young animals. The implications of this work open new avenues not only for further understanding of the aging process but also for possible strategies in its modulation by the micronutrients. / Graduation date: 2004

Graduation date: 2004

This study aims to explore the extent to which participating in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme may result in shifts in people’s relationship with time, notably whether they become more present-focussed. The eight week MBSR programme advocates mindfulness, which is defined as paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgement, as a way of reducing stress. The programme has been available in East London since 2009. A case study of eight MBSR programme participants’ experiences using narrative analysis was conducted. Narrative psychology and social constructionism provided the theoretical basis in which our storied lives are located in culturally inscribed narratives, with specific discourses around time and stress. Time discourses tend to pressurise people to believe that it is better to go about daily life at a fast pace, which requires significant hurrying and rushing with pervasive senses of time urgency. Stress discourse locates stress management within individuals. One-on-one semi structured interviews were held so that participants could reflect on their experience of time and the present moment orientation of the programme. Participants’ perceived a shift in how they experienced time with greater awareness of being present-focussed and they identified stress reduction benefits, which included feeling calmer, less panicked and more self-accepting. However, some of the participants maintaining the formal mindfulness practices like the body scan, meditation and mindful movement after the programme often proved difficult, as they were drawn back into their dominant narratives around time which were characterised by busyness, productivity and time scarcity.

Work engagement is an increasingly popular construct in organizational and occupational health psychology. However, despite substantial advances in our understanding of work engagement at the between-person level, scholars have argued for increased investigation into what drives engagement on a daily level for individual employees. In the current study, a within-person, day-level design was employed to examine the relationships between nonwork mastery experiences, job crafting behaviors, and daily work engagement. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (Hobfoll, 1989) theory, nonwork mastery experiences and job crafting were operationalized as employee-driven, resource-building strategies that assist employees in generating important psychological and job resources that can be drawn upon in order to maintain high levels of work engagement during the day. Moreover, a reciprocal relationship between work engagement during the day and nonwork mastery experiences the same evening was tested. Employees from a U.S. technology firm provided responses in the morning, at lunchtime, and after work each day for five working days. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses in the current study. Findings revealed no support for the hypothesized model at the within-person level of analysis; however, ancillary analyses suggested support for an indirect relationship between job crafting and work engagement via increased positive affect. Moreover, nearly all the proposed relationships emerged at the between-person level of analysis providing some insight into the effects of resource building strategies and work engagement across participants. Finally, seeking structural resources was identified as a person-level factor that explained variance in employees' initial levels of work engagement at the start of the week, as well as the trajectory of engagement over the course of the week. The current findings contribute to our understanding of bottom-up, employee-driven behaviors that help to sustain engagement over time. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

The research focused on constructing a psychological wellbeing profile for employee wellness and talent retention practices by investigating employees’ psychological wellbeing-related attributes (constituting self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, work engagement and psychosocial flourishing), and whether these significantly mediate the relation between their experiences of bullying and their intention to leave the organisation when controlling for bullying, age, gender, race, tenure and job level. A quantitative survey was conducted on a convenience sample of employed adults (N = 373) of different age, gender, race, tenure and job level groups from various South African organisations. The canonical statistical procedures indicated work engagement (vigour, dedication and absorption) and hardiness (commitment-alienation) as the strongest psychological wellbeing-related dispositional attributes in the workplace bullying and turnover intention relationship. The mediation modelling results showed that workplace bullying significantly predicted turnover intention, which in turn, significantly predicted either high/low levels of work engagement (vigour and dedication) in one’s work. Self-esteem, emotional intelligence or hardiness did not seem likely to influence the relationship between workplace bullying and turnover intention. The multiple regression analysis indicated that participants’ biographical variables (age, gender, race and job level) significantly predicted workplace bullying, self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, work engagement and psychosocial flourishing, and turnover intention. The tests for significant mean differences indicated that participants from various biographical groups (age, gender, race, tenure and job level) statistically significantly differed regarding workplace bullying (independent variable), the psychological wellbeing-related variables, namely self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, employee engagement, psychosocial flourishing (mediating variables) and turnover intention (dependent variable). On a theoretical level, the study deepened understanding of the cognitive, affective and conative behavioural dimensions of the hypothesised psychological wellbeing profile. On an empirical level, the main findings were reported and interpreted in terms of an empirically derived psychological wellbeing profile based on the work engagement of the participants. On a practical level, the findings provided valuable guidelines for the development of talent retention and wellness interventions, which might add to the body of knowledge relating to psychological wellbeing-related dispositional attributes that influenced workplace bullying and talent retention / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / D. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)